


The Killing Thing

by Dargelos (Dargie)



Category: Hard Target
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-12
Updated: 2010-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:22:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dargie/pseuds/Dargelos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even killers need a vacation occasionally.  Sun, sand and dysfunction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Killing Thing

I don't mind  
That you accidentally  
Broke my wing  
When you said you loved me.

You were good for me  
Like snow is good for winter.  
You were obedient to me  
Like growing grass to springtime. ~~ Gennady Trifonov

 

"Pik?"

"Mmmm?"

"Time."

A beat of silence, a sigh of resignation and a rush of cool evening air as Pik's warm weight shifted. Fouchon shivered and clenched his teeth against the chill.

Pik settled back into the curves of both bed and lover. "Gone seven," he reported. "We don't have to leave for hours and hours."

"Two hours."

"Two hours is enough." Pik's hand snaked across his lover's belly, middle finger dipping briefly into the shallow depression of navel, down through the tangle of dark copper curls at the root of Fouchon's cock. Pik knew the touches. He was as expert and meticulous in his lovemaking as he was in his killing; a fact which, when Fouchon considered it closely, was intensely arousing. It was also nearly enough to make him forget that they had to work that night.

He closed his eyes against the little thrills of pleasure, calculating exactly how long he could enjoy them before he called a halt and went in to shower.

Pik's mouth closed over his.

The kiss was long and tasted of cognac and the tangerine Pik had eaten late that afternoon while they lay in bed and watched the rain fall in the slate-grey, Belfast dusk. They'd talked about leaving the country and Pik had said, "Anywhere warmer and drier." Fouchon accused him of longing for home, but Pik denied it. "Just sunshine," he'd replied.

The touches grew uncomfortable breaking the threads of desire. Fouchon pulled away from Pik's hands. "It's not going to happen," he said, kicking free of the sheets.

"Give me a minute."

"No, Pik, I'm finished for now." He sat up.

"I'm not," Pik said with perfect truth. His cock bobbed stiffly from the patch of dark silk at the base of his belly. "Emil..."

Fouchon fell back against the pillows. "What?"

"Let me fuck you, then," he asked in the strange, clipped cadence of his South African home.

Fouchon sat up again and, without a word, went into the bathroom, shutting the door against the palpable anger on his lover's face.

"You can fight me for it," he'd said the first time the subject arose between them. "But if you lose, you know what I'll take." And sometimes Pik was willing to risk his ass, sometimes not. Not that he ever seemed to mind when he lost. Fouchon found it curious. As efficient as Pik was at dispensing pain, he never seemed the type to enjoy the sensation himself. He swore it didn't hurt him--that he liked it once he'd grown used to it--but Fouchon could recall the cloudy days of his own youth and knew Pik was lying to him. You never got used to it.

It was just as well Pik hadn't pushed the issue this time, he thought as he stepped under the hot shower spray. And the younger man's anger would pass; it always did.

 

Had they not already intended to leave Belfast, the delivery that night would have sent them packing. It was a disaster from the beginning with a client who tried to cheat them on the price of their arms. He must have been the worse for drink, or possibly insane to have deceived them. Possibly he had simply been stupid and had counted on the men he brought with them to intimidate Pik and Fouchon into accepting half the agreed-upon price. When Pik slit his throat he actually looked surprised, as did his associates who each died with a single bullet to the brain.

Angry as Fouchon was, he found almost unbearably beautiful the sight of Pik's long, elegant hands slick and black with blood in the early autumn darkness. He found himself imagining metallic kisses and flesh glued together by the sticky wetness of blood like spent semen. He shut his eyes and sighed.

"You all right?" Pik asked, wiping his blade on a handkerchief. Fouchon stared down at the figures lying in pools of blood. "Are you all right?" Pik repeated.

"Yes. Let's go." Fouchon took the packet of cash from the fingers of the dead man and walked stiffly to his own car trying not to think of a moment when they would be alone and he would have to confront his hunger. He ached to possess Pik, his perfect predator, his perfect hunting animal. And Pik, he knew, was in no mood to be possessed.

In fact, Pik was all ruthless efficiency, already burning his notes on their business dealings with the IRA and packing up their financial records when Fouchon arrived home.

"You drive too fast, Pik," he said sourly.

There was no response.

"You're covered with blood. You could have been stopped and arrested with a carload full of weapons."

Still no response.

"It's not professional."

There was another tense silence before Pik replied, "I leave all that to you." His voice was tight.

Fouchon went upstairs and undressed. He put his gun away and lit a cigarette before he built a fire against the night's chill. By the time it was burning steadily Pik had shut off the lights downstairs and come upstairs.

Fouchon heard the shower begin to run. He stood in the bathroom door for a few moments and watched Pik in silhouette through the sheer curtain, then stepped in beside his lover and put his arms around the slim waist.

Pik's elbow shot back hard, slamming into Fouchon's chest and knocking the smaller man off balance. He slipped on the wetness underfoot and fell heavily. Red exploded behind his eyes as his head smashed into the edge of the tub.

"Fuck!" Pik grabbed his wrists and hauled him out onto the bathroom floor, flipping Fouchon onto his face. "I'm sick of being your fucking boy," he snarled.

Fouchon could feel Pik's fingers probing the entrance to his body. He tried to pull away but had no clear sense of where away might be. The world was lurching sickeningly. Pik's fingers jammed upwards and Fouchon gagged on the pain. The answering pain inside his head brought tears to his eyes and a fresh wave of nausea. Blood was running down one cheek.

Suddenly he was alone; the pain of invasion ceased and the room was cold. He struggled up to his knees and tried to crawl out of the bathroom, but before he'd gone more than a foot or two, Pik grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to his feet. "Try not to throw up; you'd regret it," he advised as he walked Fouchon to the bed and laid him down on it. "Christ, I'm going to have to stitch you."

Fouchon groaned into the pillows.

When Pik returned with their first-aid kit, Fouchon asked, "Why did you stop?"

"Even I draw the line at rape, Emil. Now hold still. Your scalp is split." He cleaned the cut and opened the packaged suture. "I could have done it, you know."

"I know."

There was the sharp pain of the needle piercing already raw flesh. "Well, just so long as you know," Pik said softly. "This is going to hurt a lot, by the way."

 

Morocco was someplace warmer and drier, and it promised as much sunshine as Pik could ever want. And other attractions, too, Fouchon realized as he watched the sable-eyed Casablancan boys vying for his lover's attention. And his own. Strangely, he wanted none of them the way he wanted his predator. Pik, on the other hand, already had his arm around the shoulders of one--the prettiest one--and was whispering to him. Idly, Fouchon imagined the boy dead, but without real enthusiasm. Pik was the killer, the one who liked to dispense death.

The daydream ended abruptly when one of the boys, one Fouchon had not noticed, picked up a suitcase and said, "Al-lons, mec." Let's go, fella. Come with me. "Nousauronsuneboum," he said all in a rush of breath to Fouchon who was already warming to him against his better judgment. "J'ai du hashish."

"Oh, la!" Fouchon pretended to be shocked. "Il est un flic, ce mec" he teased, nodding at Pik.

"Je m'en branle!" the boy bragged and flipped Pik the finger. Fouchon began to laugh and the other boys all joined in. "J'te ratatine!" he yelled as he danced around a startled Pik.

"What's going on?"

"I told him you were a cop and you were going to arrest him for drugs."

Pik rolled his eyes.

"He's saying that he's going to clobber you."

"I suppose you find it amusing."

"Very." Fouchon grabbed the boy's collar and hauled him away from Pik. "Tais toi, fiston," he ordered. "Il n'est pas un flic. Il est mon jules."

The boy regarded Fouchon with knowing eyes. He looked at Pik, assessed the long, swimmer's body and nodded "Vicelard?" he asked and Fouchon laughed.

"Il baise en levrette," he whispered to the boy who looked suitably impressed.

"Now what?" Pik asked as the boys ran ahead with their luggage.

"I told him you were my lover."

"You said more than that."

"True."

"And?"

Fouchon smiled. "Don't worry; what I told him impressed him."

Pik sighed. "That's what I'm worried about."

The boys were all waiting at the house when they reached the top of the hill. Amazing, Fouchon thought, what a little money can still buy in this part of the world. The house itself was large and startlingly red against a sky of electric blue. It overlooked the ocean on one side, and on the other an orange grove. The air was hot and sweet, the sun blinding. This place was as near to home as Fouchon ever wanted to be again.

He unlocked the door and the boys scurried inside. Only Pik, and the fox-faced boy with the hashish remained outside with Fouchon. Pik and the boy stared at each other for a few moments, then Pik shrugged and went inside, into the cool, shade of their new home. The boy smiled at Fouchon. "Cherchez un peu de fesse? Voulez-vous m'enculer?"

Was he looking to get laid? Of course he was. Pik had already disappeared upstairs and would likely not be heard from again that day. "Bien sur. Tu es un beau morceau."

"Moi?" The boy grinned whitely.

"Oui. Allons." He gave the boy a shove and followed him into the house. "Où est le stup?"

The boy produced a small, grimy-looking paper bag full of drugs from his pocket and handed it to Fouchon

"D'ac," Fouchon said, leading the way upstairs. "Comment's'appelle?"

"Musa."

"Je m'appelle Emil."

"Bonjour, Emil."

"Bonjour, Musa."

 

It was early the next morning before Fouchon and Pik met again over breakfast.

"What's yours called?" Pik asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

Fouchon didn't look up from his newspaper. "Musa. It has a dramatic, Old Testament sound, doesn't it?"

"And did the Red Sea part for you?"

"Comprehensively. What do you call yours?"

"One was Daoud, one was Jalil."

"Two? What stamina."

"On their part more than mine. Anything interesting in the news?"

They discussed local happenings for a while, and a number of possible business ventures. Then Pik said, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Emil, you and I have been together for seven years now; I know when you're not yourself."

Fouchon shrugged. "General malaise, I suppose."

"What can I do?"

"Nothing to be done. Don't worry."

In truth, he knew more than he was admitting, but not much. It was harder on him each time Pik deserted his bed for someone else's, and though the strain was at least as much his fault as Pik's, it didn't make the estrangement any easier to bear. He wished he knew why. He wished the resentment he was feeling would simply stop, the loneliness even as he lay beside boys like Musa. He sometimes wondered if he wouldn't be better off alone, without Pik. Then, at least, he would have nothing to regret, nothing more to lose.

"What about a piano?"

Fouchon snapped back to awareness of his surroundings. "What about one?"

"You'd be happier if we had one, wouldn't you?"

"Can't afford it." He sipped his coffee and went back to his reading. Then he laid the paper down again. "Thank you for thinking of it, though."

Pik stared at him for a moment. "Why wouldn't I? You're always more tractable when you have your music."

"Oh."

They were quiet together for a few minutes. Then, as Pik was about to say something, Musa appeared on the steps up to the verandah and said, "Il fait du bourguignon; on pourra se lézarder!" then disappeared.

"What was all that about?"

"An invitation to go sit on the beach and soak up some sun. You really should learn to speak some French."

"Are you going to learn to speak Afrikaans?" Pik countered.

Fouchon smiled mirthlessly. "Point taken. Well," he said, "I think a laze on the beach might be nice." He folded his paper and went up to dress.

By the time he had pulled on a pair of gauzy white drawstring trousers and an equally cool, gauzy, white shirt, Pik had disappeared back into the bedroom with someone else. For just a moment, Fouchon considered going in and breaking up the session, but then he gave way to the lure of the ocean and of white sand. It had been a great many years since he had stretched out on the sands of home and let the sun bake him brown; he wondered if he'd burn.

The steps, the stones, the sand were all hot under his feet, and all brought back memories - some good, some not so. Even the sight of the boys playing on the beach, most of them in some stage of nudity, was familiar to him as the sight of his own bare feet digging into the sand. He walked down to where most of the group was idling and lay in the sand. Musa was wrestling a bigger boy and winning. Fouchon put on his sunglasses and shut his eyes.

"M'sieu?"

Without stirring or opening his eyes he replied, "Oui?"

"Vouz prenez d'la moussante, vous? Du vin?"

"Non, merci."

"Du stup?"

Drugs again. "Rien du tout."

"Oh."

A second voice chimed in, "M'sieu has cigarettes?"

Fouchon opened one eye and looked up at one of the boys who had been with Pik the night before. "You want some cigarettes?" He pulled an almost new pack from his pocket and handed it to the boy. There was a short scuffle and when it was over, all the boys had cigarettes dangling from their lips. They seemed to have lost the matches, though. Fouchon chuckled and pulled off his shirt. He rolled onto his stomach and lay down, propping his chin on his hands.

Musa flopped into the sand beside him and slipped a hand down Fouchon's trousers. He smiled when he encountered nothing but bare flesh. "Mmm, le beau cul," he said with a brilliant smile. "Ton jules est un chaud-lapin; il se fait sauter par tout le monde."

The phrase "a hot rabbit" made Fouchon laugh outloud. So even these boys recognized that Pik was hyper-sexual and chronically unfaithful.

"J'ne fait pas des infidélités..."

"Oh certainly not," Fouchon drawled. As if he believed that Musa, who around sunrise that morning had asked for money for his ailing mother, would be a better , more faithful lover than Pik. As if he believed that the boy even had an ailing mother. Fouchon vaguely remembered using that line himself a few times.

One of the boys threw a handful of figs into the sand. "Des figues?"

"Oui. Merci bien."

"M'ci" Musa echoed, scooping up several of the warm black fruits.

Fouchon chose one, split it with his fingers and sucked the sweet flesh from the crimson heart of the gash. The boys were all laughing and eating noisily. One of them was comparing the fruit to a woman; a boy who had just discovered the opposite sex, no doubt, and was anxious to discuss his discovery in detail with the other boys.

Fouchon's fingers were sticky and perfumed with fig juice. He licked his palm and glanced up towards the house. Pik was standing on the verandah looking down on the beach. Come down, Fouchon willed, but Pik turned and walked back into the house. Musa found the drawstring and pulled. The trousers loosened, and strong, brown, fruit-sticky hands pushed them towards Fouchon's feet.

 

Fouchon ate lunch alone in a little cafe. He'd stopped on the way for more cigarettes and a copy of Le Monde, and he ate, read his newspaper and smoked a few Gitanes over a glass of sweet, mint tea. He wished Pik were with him; he missed the man's company. Odd how easily Pik had fit into his life over the last seven years. What held them together? Possibly if Fouchon understood that, he might know what it was they were missing, what it was that was pushing them apart. Could it have been just as simple as it seemed? That all Pik wanted was to be on top half the time...some of the time? And if that were all, and seemed such a simple thing over a glass of tea and a cigarette, why couldn't it be simple in fact?

Because for Fouchon it had a meaning that it could never have for the younger man. It was about power, and money and trading your probity for your most basic needs.

And it hurt, he added, almost aloud. Mostly it did, anyway. He had known it to be pleasurable, but in most of those cases, the pleasure came from taking back power, not from any pleasant physical sensations.

He took a deep breath and willed himself to relax. He hated thinking about his past, and he avoided it whenever possible, but being here, so close to where he had grown up, first in Béchar and then in Algiers...it was hard to avoid the past. The past was like living creature in places like this; you ran into it in the street, it was around every corner and lurked in every home.

He walked back towards the house, but instead of going up, he walked on into the orange grove. In the late afternoon, the shadows were long and cool. He picked an orange and sat down under one of the trees to eat it. Its peel perfumed the air, its juice was sweet, flesh hot from the sun. This was home, too, and history.

It was late before he went back to the red house on the hill. It was silent; the boys, who chattered like magpies through every waking moment, were all gone for the day. The door to Pik's bedroom was open and Fouchon caught sight of his lover lying on a vast expanse of pure white sheet, his skin looking like polished marble in the strange half-light of early evening. Fouchon stared for a few moments, then walked on to his own room.

The taste of the orange groves was still in his mouth.

 

A few days later, Pik arrived in Fouchon's bedroom, leading a young woman by the hand. "We have a guest," he said. "This young lady is Jalil's sister, Yasmina. In my opinion, she is neither his sister nor is her name Yasmina, but you will have to admit that she's acceptably pretty."

"Is there a point to this?" Fouchon asked patiently, recognizing in his partner the signs of a bit too much drink.

"I knew when I saw her that she was exactly the sort of young lady you like best--small, plump, dark and pretty. She has fine eyes and the most delightful nipples you've ever seen. They're hennaed."

Fouchon bit back a grin. "It sounds as though you've investigated pretty thoroughly," he remarked.

"I haven't got much past the waist," Pik admitted. "I was saving that for you. I thought the three of us..."

"I'm busy, Pik. You two go have some fun."

"Busy with what?"

"Business."

Pik's face darkened. "There's nothing more to be done, Emil. I know; I did most of it this morning. Why are you lying to me?"

"Perhaps because I'm not interested. Let's not fight about this, too."

It was so easy to rub Pik the wrong way, so easy to hurt him, Fouchon realized as he watched the two of them retreat, Yasmina giggling, not understanding any of what had been said, and Pik angry and upset once again. Fouchon shut his eyes and wished he were better at this. He never meant to hurt his lover this way, and yet he often found it the only way to shield himself from pain.

But Pik had ways of getting even, and Fouchon dreaded the revenge he'd take over this slight.

It came sooner than expected and was elegantly simple. He left the bedroom door open while he and the girl went at it. When Emil walked by on the way to his room, he saw Pik lying on his back being sucked by Yasmina whose back was to the door. She was wide open to the gaze of any passer-by and Fouchon knew Pik had arranged it that way. She was wet and ripely, redly swollen like the fruit of the warm, dark fig he'd eaten on the beach. She had obviously been fucked once already; a challenge Fouchon couldn't afford to ignore and an invitation which he couldn't accept without losing a little high ground.

He watched for a few minutes and Pik, aware of his presence, put on a good show. He pulled her up and kissed her deeply while his not-quite-erect cock rubbed along the crimson, glistening folds of her genitals. His long hands were pale on her dark flesh, fondling her lush ass, opening her even wider so that a white froth of semen spilled out of her and dripped onto Pik's bare thigh like the juice of some perfectly ripe, sweet desert fruit. He was offering her, no longer as a gift, but as a reward for capitulation. If you have her, you can have me again, too. If you take her, I'll take you.

Almost as if in a dream, Fouchon started towards the bed. He didn't want Yasmina, but she was the price for regaining his partner's body. He opened his trousers and withdrew his stiffened cock, let it brush Pik's briefly and then entered the girl on the slickness of his lover's semen.

She wasn't surprised, she had been expecting this and pressed back onto him tightening her muscles around him. Fouchon shuddered and clutched at her hips. He could feel Pik's fingers stroking the base of his cock, stroking the nub of her clitoris. She began to whimper. Pik looked over her shoulder, looked Fouchon straight in the eye and smiled in a way which chilled the other man's blood.

Suddenly Yasmina threw back her head and screamed. Her muscles clamped down hard on his invading organ and he felt himself beginning to tense for orgasm.

He pulled away from her. It was not something he wanted even if his body was demanding it. He backed away and left the room without looking at either of the people on the bed, and went in to wash them off his skin.

About twenty minutes later Pik opened the shower curtain. "What was that about?"

"A mistake. Close the curtain."

"No, you talk to me. You hurt her feelings."

Fouchon doubted it. "I hope you made my apologies."

"What happened?"

"I realized she cost too much."

Pik stared at him for a few moments, then a crooked, cynical smile crossed his face. "That's your problem, Emil. You're cheap when it comes to love." He closed the curtain.

Fouchon stood under the spray until it turned cold. Then, without drying himself, he went back to Pik's room. The lights were out but he could see Pik's body clearly, defined as it was by the pure blue-white spill of moonlight on the white cotton sheet. He lifted the sheet and slid under it.

"You're wet."

"I can't do this anymore. It hurts too much."

"You could leave me," Pik muttered, tearing a gash in Fouchon's heart, leaving it as raw and open as the split fig.

"I taste you in my dreams; how can I leave you?" Fouchon whispered. He thought - honestly thought - that he might die that night and in that place.

Pik rolled over on top of the smaller man and touched his lips to Fouchon's with the greatest tenderness. "I never seriously considered it an option."

It was like a call from the governor, a last-minute reprieve. Fouchon wrapped his legs around Pik's in a blunt invitation. The value of self had taken a sudden dive; his body's integrity was nothing to the value of the man who held him now. "I guess we don't have a choice," he said, his mouth so close to Pik's he barely knew which of them had truly spoken just then.

"You're sure?"

"Whatever I have to do...you'll help me get by, won't you? I give up, I yield. Do it if you have to. I'm yours; I need you to know that."

Pik tried to pull free but Fouchon held him. "Do it."

"I can't hurt you."

"Do it," he said once more. He was feeling so tense and unhappy that he began to be queasy. "It's the lesser of evils, Pik. It's taken me years to recognize that fact."

Pik's voice was dull in the darkness. "Let me go."

Fouchon unwrapped himself. He threw one arm over his eyes and wondered why masturbation wasn't ever enough; why did people have to tie themselves up this way? "Pik, I'm sorry. I'm slow, I've been afraid. Can't you forgive..."

Pik rolled him onto his side. "Just hold still a bit." A slick finger parted him, entered him, making him gasp. "You're so tense. Let go a little."

"I can't."

"Of course you can. You trust me to guard your back, don't you? Trust me to love you properly."

That word again. Of all the words in any language, it was the most deadly. It could kill.

Two fingers. Three. Pik rolled him onto his back. He was hard, his cock was covered with something slick.

"Bend your knees."

Fouchon did as he was told; he didn't have to think which was a blessing.

Pik leaned forward, something pressed against the entrance to Fouchon's body, there was an explosion of pain and he shut his eyes and moaned.

Pik grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the bed. "Look at me. Look at me!"

Fouchon opened his eyes. It was like being hit by lightning. "Christ," he breathed. He was panting from the pain. Pik was inside him, but unmoving.

"Now we wait."

"For what?" Fouchon demanded, an edge of hysteria in his voice.

"For you to relax. Look at me! Look me in the eye, damnit. I'm your lover; give me that much of yourself."

An hour, a day, a year passed with them locked together, unmoving. A lifetime. Ten minutes at most. Pik was beginning to sweat and suddenly Fouchon found it funny.

"Talk about getting your balls in a twist," he remarked, his eyes never leaving Pik's. He saw the answering smile in them.

"You're tight," Pik replied. "Tight ass. Very nice."

Suddenly Fouchon realized that Pik had begun to move inside him very slowly and that he was no longer in a lot of pain. In fact, aside from a vague digestive discomfort, there was nothing horribly unpleasant about Pik fucking him. Nothing particularly spectacular either.

"You all right?"

"Surprisingly, yes."

"I thought you would be eventually."

Pleased, Fouchon said, "You can be my sexual guru any time."

"Now you learn how to love it."

"If it's you, that's enough for me."

"But not for me. I want you to feel pleasure; I need you to love this, Emil, the way I do." He pushed inwards at a slightly different angle and the sensation made Fouchon rise up off the bed, his breath hissing through his teeth.

"Jesus you found the place, didn't you?" he managed. His cock swelled and bumped up against Pik's belly. A fucking miracle. Literally.

"I can do it every time; I know your body like I know my own. Look me in the eye," he demanded again.

Fire there. And the thing that could kill. Fouchon wanted to look away but if there was a price to this pleasure it was the knowledge he found in Pik's level gaze.

"You will like it," Pik promised. "And you will say it. And hear me say it."

"I know," he said, but he thought Jesus, why is there never a moment without some kind of pain? "Pik, let go of my hands. I need to touch you."

Pik released him; his mouth closed over Fouchon's who yielded to it the way he'd yielded to the invasion. Just let it all go, he thought as his hands stroked the long muscles of Pik's back and arms. Become someone else and let it all go. Pik rocked forward and the waves of pleasure washed over them both; he could feel it in the tension of his lover's muscles under his sensitive fingers, he could feel the music in him the same way he always felt it spilling out of his piano as he played. He relaxed into the motion, trusting it for the first time. Music. It was how he gauged good sex--by its similarity to the music he loved so much. If it was there for them now, he'd be okay, he'd survive this.

"It's so good," Pik murmured, their lips so close, it was almost more a feeling than a sound.

"It is."

"Not a lie?"

"How could I?"

Pik chuckled, ran his tongue over his lover's mouth, then he moaned softly. "Close," he whispered. "Christ! And then he pressed his face to Fouchon's shoulder and gasped as the sexual tension in him resolved itself into climax. "Oh no..." he groaned.

Fouchon wrapped his arms around the younger man and held him close. What he was feeling was an incomprehensible pleasure almost beyond the physical. He barely noticed the rush of heat inside him except to register that it was anything but unpleasant. What he felt was like a rush of heat inside his chest, inside his mind, as if Pik's soul had been emptied into him.

"Oh god, it was too soon," Pik muttered when he was able to speak coherently.

"It was fine, perfect."

"I wanted you to feel it."

"I did."

"No..."

"Yes."

Long fingers stroked his erection. "You didn't come."

"There's time. Pik, thank you."

Dark eyes lifted to meet his and the look held for what seemed an eternity. Then Pik said, "You know now that I love you, don't you, Habibe?"

The endearment in his native language touched Fouchon more deeply than he ever could express. He nodded. "Have you ever realized that I love you?" He could see by the slight withdrawal somewhere at the back of Pik's gaze that the other man had never been quite certain of his partner's feelings. He felt stupid and shallow all over again. "Do you know it now?" he asked quickly. "It's so important; do you know it now?"

"You don't ever have to say it again."

"I probably won't."

"I know. It's all right. Let me finish this now," he said, breaking the look between them as he slipped down to touch his mouth to the tip of Fouchon's cock.

The older man doubted that they would ever have a time like this again; it wasn't in their natures, either of them. When they touched it was usually out of some driving heat. Tenderness was the last thing they ever thought to share.

Even now as Pik's mouth closed over him and he felt the warmth of what they'd just said and done slipping away into the fire of passion he was able to recognize that every piece of music had to have its quiet passages, its resolutions. And what he felt as Pik's mouth urged him over the edge was--the idea made him smile later when he considered it--a sort of anti-climax.

They would settle into old patterns as surely as they settled into their sleeping positions, but the thing, the killing thing, had been said and done and they had survived it; the fear and the anger between them had not.

Pik pulled Fouchon into the curve of his body and wrapped an arm around his waist. "You smell wonderful."

"I smell like a goat."

"Then I like the way goats smell. The piano comes tomorrow. Just in time, nej?"

Fouchon pulled back and stared down at his lover. "Piano?"

"I've saved more than you think; we can afford it."

He was touched by the gesture, but uneasy. "Pik, when we leave here..."

"No. Don't talk about the end of this. He pulled Fouchon back into his arms. "I've missed the music," he admitted.

"So have I," Fouchon said. "So have I."


End file.
